


Components

by dumplingsquid



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Dreamsharing, F/F, Non-Linear Narrative, Pre-Canon, Season: Twilight Mirage, Secret Samol 2018, the major character death is only bc belgard i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-19 01:47:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17592398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dumplingsquid/pseuds/dumplingsquid
Summary: Keeping track of time is… difficult, when you're dead. Moments stretch out or crowd together, jump out of order. Sometimes Belgard can separate out what's now and what isn't, and sometimes memories overtake her.





	Components

**Author's Note:**

  * For [caesarsboom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/caesarsboom/gifts).



> Written for the prompt "Signet and her robot wife in a bonding moment from the past". Here's several of those! Plus a sad frame story, because my Belgard Feelings are overwhelming and can't be contained. I hope you enjoy, caesarsboom! Happy Secret Samol!

Being dead is different than Belgard expected.

Largely because there's something to break her expectations, rather than nothing. When she thought about it, before, she'd thought about her wings still, spread across the hull of some new ship, protection and decoration both. The thought wasn't without appeal.

Instead, being dead mostly seems like being alive, but less. Less awareness, less surety, less control over the things that used to be so easily hers. Frequently she's alone. Sometimes ⸢Signet⸣ is there. Sometimes Belgard can speak to her; sometimes she tries but by the time she manages, it's been hours and ⸢Signet⸣ is gone again.

Keeping track of time is… difficult, when you're dead. Moments stretch out or crowd together, jump out of order. Sometimes Belgard can separate out what's now and what isn't, and sometimes…

\---

⸢Signet⸣'s in the cockpit, moving dancer-graceful through the launch routines as they detach from Thyrsus: a spin, a leap, long steady fingers reaching into beams of liquid light. It's a little nothing-trip, out for some routine repairs on Peregian and then back. ⸢Signet⸣ doesn't even need to be here, not really, but Belgard's glad she is.

⸢Signet⸣'s got her yellow brocade flight suit on. It's her favorite, so she only lets herself wear it when she's in a bad mood, or didn't get enough sleep. The lock of hair escaping from her ponytail suggests the latter. Belgard collects these little bits of dishevelment like an animal storing food for winter.

There's a moment of stillness. ⸢Signet⸣ rubs her thumbs back and forth across the fabric of the straps she's holding. Belgard knows the answer—can read it in a thousand ways—but she asks anyway, "Ready to go?"

⸢Signet⸣ smiles. "Always," she says, and oh. Oh, Belgard has loved her Excerpts before, and she will love them again after ⸢Signet⸣, most likely, but in this moment it feels impossible that ⸢Signet⸣ could be wrong, that there could ever be a time when she could not be here, in Belgard's cockpit, in her mind, in her life. The time Belgard and ⸢Signet⸣ have been together is an eyeblink, a single electrical impulse in the lightning-storm of Belgard's life, and yet. And yet.

_Please,_ Belgard asks the Mirage _, don't let me outlive her._

And that's when they're attacked.

\---

… sometimes the memories overtake her, sensations recorded long ago feeling more real than new ones do.

But when  ⸢Signet⸣ calls for her, Belgard hears it. She always hears it, or at least, she thinks she does. ⸢Signet⸣ is sad, and reaching out for her, and Belgard reaches back. She pulls ⸢Signet⸣ into her cockpit, tries to ask _what's wrong,_ but… ⸢Signet⸣'s not alone.

_Belgard_ isn't alone.

Things are shifting, inside of her. Systems are waking up, ones that have been dormant for so long. But.

"This isn't me," she says.

Belgard has spent hundreds of years lost in the wreckage of herself. This is… worse, maybe. She doesn't have the words for what she feels. An image comes into her mind, paths diverging endlessly in a maze of buckthorn. And yes, that's it exactly, and it almost makes her feel better, until she realizes the image didn't come from within her.

_Who are you,_ Belgard thinks, unsure if she wants an answer. _What do you want?_

\---

"I want to go _home_ ," ⸢Signet⸣ says as she starts to unbraid the straps she's fidgeting with for the third time.

Belgard puts a little tension into one of them, moves it to stroke lightly against ⸢Signet⸣'s palm. ⸢Signet⸣ closes her hand around it. "Soon, I hope," Belgard says.

"I have lost count of the number of times you've said that," ⸢Signet⸣ says, one part peevish, two parts weary.

"And it's been true each time," Belgard says, "I don't like being away from the Fleet either."

"I know," ⸢Signet⸣ says, "Sorry."

They came to the planet with a team of diplomats, working out a trade deal with its citizens for some things the Fleet can no longer produce for itself, food they can't grow and tech they can't build. For all her natural poise, this part of her job—being a dignitary—still sits uneasily around ⸢Signet⸣'s shoulders, knots up her back with tension. And it's worse, now, when ⸢Signet⸣'s role is mostly done, and it's just up to the diplomats to work out the details.

"Why don't we go see the ocean this afternoon? I don't think they'll need us any more today," Belgard says.

"Are you trying to distract me?"

"Yes." It's the truth, and it makes ⸢Signet⸣ laugh, which is a pleasant side effect.

"Fine. The ocean," ⸢Signet⸣ says, already strapping herself in.

It takes them nearly an hour to get there, flying at slow atmospheric speeds, and it's midafternoon when they do, the suns hot and bright in the cloudless sky. ⸢Signet⸣ strips off her flight suit before she leaves the cockpit, toes off her shoes. Her bodysuit today is a deep, rich maroon. Her bare feet are bright against the cockpit floor. She opens the hatch that leads up instead of the one going down.

"Where are you going?"

"I want a view, " ⸢Signet⸣ says, and pops open the hatch on Belgard's shoulder. ⸢Signet⸣ climbs out and sits down, and Belgard curls one of her wings up to give ⸢Signet⸣ shade.

⸢Signet⸣ starts to relax, a little. The water sparkles iridescent purple in the light of the sun.

"I wonder what makes it that color," Belgard says.

"It's a kind of algae," ⸢Signet⸣ says.

"Oh?" Belgard doesn't bother to hide her surprise, and it makes ⸢Signet⸣ smile.

"I met a scientist at that dinner, last week. She grows it for…" ⸢Signet⸣ waves her hand vaguely, "something."

"Tell me about her," Belgard says, and ⸢Signet⸣ does, until the first of the suns starts to set.

\---

It's called Chthonic.

Something about it seems almost familiar, but Belgard can't—quite—figure out why. She keeps it confined inside of her, the best she can, but it doesn't seem to resent her for that. It just keeps spreading itself further into her systems, and pops up, occasionally, in response to one of her thoughts.

She almost gets used to it, horribly, in the month ⸢Signet⸣ is in Contrition's Figure. She wonders where the scientists leaving her cockpit are going, and then: a still of dandelion seeds floating in a meadow. She misses ⸢Signet⸣, and gets an image of a lonely cabin on a hilltop, buried in snow. She thinks about Chthonic's offer—more often than she'd like to—and she sees a dock leading invitingly to a clear blue lake.  She starts leaving spaces in her own thoughts for Chthonic to fill.

It feels like longer than a month. It feels a little like forever. But then finally Belgard can feel ⸢Signet⸣'s mind again, getting closer.

\---

The details of the ceremony have changed innumerably since the first time Belgard's been a part of it, but its heart is the same, and the heart is beautiful, is _resonant._ Still, Belgard prefers what comes afterwards. The ceremony makes ⸢Signet⸣ Excerpt in name; when ⸢Signet⸣'s implants activate, when her mind connects to Belgard's, she'll be Excerpt in truth.

It's done while ⸢Signet⸣ is asleep; it's easier that way for a human's mind to adjust. What that means for Belgard is the first brush she gets of ⸢Signet⸣'s mind is soft, unguarded. Belgard lets herself sink into it.

⸢Signet⸣ is standing in a garden on Thyrsus. Her hair is down; her feet are bare. A stray beetle crawls across her toes. Her mind has turned Belgard to butterflies, golden and glimmering, and Belgard sends one to land in ⸢Signet⸣'s hair.

"You kept me waiting," says ⸢Signet⸣.

"I'm sorry," Belgard says. ⸢Signet⸣ puts her hands together, palms-up, in front of her face, and Belgard lands tiny butterfly legs on it. She has held ⸢Signet⸣ like this, a few times, and the reversal is strange. ⸢Signet⸣'s eyes are very large and very dark.

"Well, let's go now," she says.

"Where?" Belgard asks, but ⸢Signet⸣'s already moving, so Belgard trails after her, a fluttering comet tail. ⸢Signet⸣ comes to a tall oak tree, growing next to a glass wall, and she starts to climb, nimble and fearless; as Belgard flies after her she steps out onto a tree branch and walks, arms outstretched, until she's standing just past the edge of the wall. Below her is open space, the soft light of the Mirage, and ⸢Signet⸣'s staring at it, intense, hungry.

Emerald elytra open on ⸢Signet⸣'s back, her delicate veined wings spreading to their full width. Has ⸢Signet⸣ always had wings?

It doesn't matter. The garden beneath them falls away. They fly together, cradled by pink and purple.

\---

Chthonic is always quiet when ⸢Signet⸣ comes to tell her stories, in a way that sometimes seems sinister, sometimes almost respectful. It's so hard—for something living in her own mind—to discern Chthonic's motivations, personality, intention.

She tries not to worry about it, when ⸢Signet⸣'s there. She focuses on the sound of ⸢Signet⸣'s voice, familiar and dear, the sight of her sitting in the cockpit, or walking around brushing the walls with her fingers.

She focuses on ⸢Signet⸣'s words, every precious name she's giving to Belgard.

"Let me tell you about Pure Cascara," ⸢Signet⸣ says, and Belgard feels her heart begin to beat.

\---

The first time Belgard meets the woman who is to be her next Excerpt, it's barely a month after ⸢Harbor⸣ died, and Belgard is… Belgard is not ready, not by a long shot, still feeling out the boundaries of the emptiness inside her, the grief that's so new and so familiar.

She could have said that, of course. She could have asked for time. But she can't help the fleet without an Excerpt, and if she couldn't heal ⸢Harbor⸣, then she could at least…

The woman's supposed to be promising, anyway. Talented, devoted. No reason to keep her waiting.

Belgard's docked, clinging lazily to Thyrsus's central hub. Parts of her are busy, because parts of her are always busy, rebuilding her shields, tracking the status of recent repairs, monitoring the Fleet for problems; but mostly she's letting her senses drift, absently tracking the signs-of-life passing nearby, soothing points of life and breath. She's caught a little off guard when one of them breaks off from the rest, and puts her hand on the door to the walkway connecting her with Thyrsus.

The woman knocks, twice, before opening the door and stepping in. It's a polite gesture, almost quaint, when Belgard's used to people walking in and out without thinking about it.

Belgard looks at her, carefully. She doesn't want to make any comparisons.

It's easier than she expected it would be. The woman's very correct, her hair long and neat, her face placid, but Belgard thinks there's an energy underneath, tightly controlled. Belgard wishes, for a second, that she didn't want to know what it was made of, what it looked like unleashed.

But she does, and she's nearly sure, before speaking a word, that she will know, before too long. "It's good to meet you," she says, and adds, on an impulse she might regret later, "Do you have a favorite verse?"

The woman hesitates a moment. "They marked scars of light in pitch; born in fiercest purpose, and beheld as the signet sealed upon our pact."

Belgard thinks of another time, long ago, of lights that seemed as solid as possibility becoming truth. She thinks about the woman in front of her, her perfect rigid posture, the space of the pause before she spoke. Fiercest purpose.

"What a coincidence," she says, places her hand, palm-up, onto the walkway, so ⸢Signet⸣ can climb on, if she wants to. "That's my favorite, too."


End file.
